It was a busy week for this young techie in Los Angeles, and hence remembered about his younger sister’s birthday only one day before. He knew he had no time left to ship a gift to India, but was sure that his sister on the other side of the globe would be expecting her gift to reach. He soon logged on to MyGiftMate.com, a mobile gifting service and selected the amount to send and entered his email address along with the recipient’s valid mobile number in India and email address. Then he proceeded to Google check out to complete the purchase. Back home, the young 16 year old was just back from her classes and was surprised when she checked her mobile to receive a gift voucher viaSMS. Happy and thrilled she began to list out the things she would shop for with the gift voucher.

It is said that good things come in small packages. But now you can say good things come the SMS way. The Short Message Service (SMS) is not a new phenomenon, but it has gained wider applications in the recent past. Now there is an additional benefit to SMS – sending a gift voucher to your loved ones anywhere across the world within a few minutes time by a simple text message. Thanks to the new and innovative mobile gifting service launched by PayMate, a mobile payment service company.

PayMate started MyGiftMate.com to facilitate monetary and gift remittances across international borders. MyGiftMate.com, launched in May 2008 as a branch of Pay Mate Online, is the brainchild of Ajay Adiseshann. Earlier he founded Coruscant Tec, a successful mobile content developer and aggregator company. “We are confident that NRIs will see great value in using MyGiftMate for gifting their friends and family back home in India,” says Ajay Adiseshann, Founder and CEO of PayMate. ‘’The emerging gift card market in India is forecast to see explosive growth and PayMate with its MyGiftMate product is well positioned for growth. The NRI market is a key piece of our growth strategy for GiftMate,” he adds.

The gifting process is simple. You register with PayMate which automatically qualifies you to shop with any of their validated online or offline merchants. While registering, you can assign your bank or credit card account and the amount for the gift voucher will be debited accordingly from the account you specify. You then get to choose a dynamic alpha code with a four digit PIN which helps you send unlimited gift vouchers at your discretion to your loved ones in India. This procedure is convenient, safe and secure, and easy to use. You can SMS the gift voucher to your loved one in India who will be able to use the gift voucher along with the code supplied at the outlets of thousands of offline and online merchants.

MyGiftMate is much more technologically advanced than traditional money transfer companies. The recipient can spend the gift voucher at several merchants at any given time. In addition to merchants several banks, including the Bank of Ceylon, have registered with Pay Mate to help customers pay bills using their cell phones. MyGiftMate, however, goes a step further by actually helping people send gift vouchers.

MyGiftMate is highly selective of the merchants they validate by making sure that their businesses are genuine, and their products are of high standard and quality. Many online and offline merchants are now getting on board this novel way of shopping that uses simple SMS technology. It gives them an added alternative to grow and expand their business through cell phone technology, to add new virtual shoppers to their existing database, while it encourages them to stock new inventory. All this means one thing to the customer – unlimited possibilities in the world by cell phone shopping.

To augment its growth, Tata Indicom, a leading mobile solutions provider in India, has joined hands with Pay Mate, the original entity, to make all transactions successful in real time. This will make shopping by cell phone a raving technology of the present. Pay Mate is building a network of platform and services that enable simple, secure, and convenient payments between individuals, person-to-person (P2P) and between consumers and businesses (B2C). “The Pay Mate network of platform and services has universal appeal. Pay Mate, in the coming months, will build out its network and go more mainstream,” says Dhruv Singh, Vice President.

Adiseshann and his team do not want to remain contented with what they have achieved. They are funneling $9 million in various stages into promotions and business development – focusing intensely on achieving a superior platform of technology by enhancing security and advanced ease of features for all mobile users. Pay Mate and Gift Mate are setting their sights on providing services globally, not just limiting their services to Asian Americans.

It goes without saying that this cool startup is marching ahead, by not only building some cool products, but building technology which has the power to enhance people’s lives. The company also has chalked out a well laid out roadmap to move forward. While they roll out new things, you can send a quick gift for someone you love through MyGiftMate.com